Cowbridge U3A History Group

Minutes of the Annual General Meeting held on Thursday, 20th February 2020

The meeting was opened and chaired by Steve Monaghan, the Group Leader.

Preliminary Announcements

Steve welcomed everyone, especially for coming out on such a wet morning.

Fire exits were pointed out as usual.

Steve informed those present that the March 2020 meeting would be held upstairs in the Main Hall of the Town Hall. The History Group had been requested to move upstairs by Town Hall staff for that month only to make way for another organisation, and Steve had agreed to this change since the group had been given a financial incentive to do so.

Main AGM Business

Valerie Monaghan had agreed to take the Minutes.

Apologies

These had been received from Dafydd and Glenda Evans, Mags and Tim Buchalik, Derek and Margaret Day, Anne Howells and Ann Alford.

Minutes of AGM in 2019

Steve gave a summary of the contents. They had recently been circulated to members, and had been on the webpage for almost a year. Approval was proposed by Gwerfyl Gardner, with Jan Lewis seconding.

Group Leader’s Report

Steve gave a summary of all the talks that the Group had had during the previous year, as follows:

March 2019: ‘Footprints in the Waves: Revealing Gower’s Intertidal Secrets’ by Dr Rhiannon Philp (guest speaker)

April 2019: ‘The Medieval Cult of St Christopher’ by Professor Madeleine Gray (guest speaker).

May 2019: ‘In Search of my Father: a light-hearted look at Family History’ by Sally Mabey (guest speaker).

June 2019: ‘From New York to London via Abermawr, the Transatlantic Cable of 1866’ by Stephen K Jones (guest speaker).

July 2019: ‘The Quintinshill Rail Disaster’ by Gavin Davies.

August 2019: ‘A Lingering Fear: the Story of Pontypridd Union Workhouse’ by Keith Jones (guest speaker).

September 2019: ‘Hannibal – a life and a legend’ by Dr Eve McDonald (guest speaker).

October 2019: ‘Britain’s Forgotten Terrorists’ by Steve Monaghan.

November 2019: 3 short talks as follows:

‘2 Weddings and a Coronation’ by Thelma Jeeves

‘Hiroshima: a City Resurrected from the Ashes’ by Keith Morgan

‘2 Bayonets’ by Jan Lewis, who had brought and passed round the bayonets.

December 2019: ‘Cardiff’s Forgotten Castle’ by Brian Davies (guest speaker), followed by the Christmas buffet with wine.

January 2020: ‘From Top to Toe – a history of fashion’ by Rosemary Scadden (guest speaker).

Steve announced that the requirement to ‘sign in’ for each meeting was to cease, as it hadn’t worked well and was not being enforced by the Town Hall as part of their fire regulations. Nevertheless, he gave details of attendance based on the signed lists for the past year, the best being 10 attendances by Anna Andrew, Norah and Gavin Davies, and Ann Alford (although it was likely that Gavin had been present on 11 occasions but had failed to sign in for one of them). All four ‘best attendees’ were rewarded with a small prize. The average attendance was 37, with the most attendees in November (49) and December (46).

Steve thanked Hywel Davies for acting as Treasurer.

He explained that the cost of outside speakers had increased, with one this year asking for £50. Gavin confirmed that this was in line with his experiences as a speaker. (It was noted that if we had more in-house speakers, it would help to keep our costs down.)

Steve then asked Hywel Davies, the Treasurer, to present his report.

Treasurer’s Report and Subscriptions

given by Hywel Davies.

Hywel had already circulated an accounts sheet showing details of income and expenditure for the last year.

He gave a summary of past subscriptions, including a ‘sub holiday’ of £5 a year, purposefully to lower funds held, which the group had enjoyed in recent years. However, the subscription for the last year had been £10. This had kept the funds stable. Hywel praised Steve’s shrewd ability to get outside speakers at good rates. He said that more than previously had been spent on victuals for the Christmas buffet, but that more people had attended. He proposed that the subscription stay at £10 a year, and the vote to keep it as such was unanimous.

Election of Group Leader and Treasurer

Steve stated that both he and Hywel were both willing to continue in their respective roles, but would happily stand down if anyone else wanted to take over. There were no other nominations or volunteers. The vote to retain both was unanimous.

Location of December Meeting

Steve proposed that the meeting for December be located in the Main Hall upstairs, as it had been very convenient to have the larger room for last December’s meeting followed by the Christmas buffet, as tables can already be put out for the buffet before the talk. He pointed out that by next December there would be a lift in the Town Hall, which would facilitate taking food etc. upstairs, and meant that no members would be precluded on grounds of mobility. The vote to move the December meeting upstairs was unanimous.

A.O.B.

Steve announced that there were no plans for a trip at present.

Thank You

Gwerfyl Gardner thanked Steve and Hywel for their hard work on behalf of the whole Group.

The AGM finished at 10.17am, and was followed by the traditional Show and Tell.

Valerie Monaghan (Acting Secretary)